“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you know before when we were outside, how come you couldn’t scent it was Valak, and not me?”
Wow, before he said it, I never remembered not being able to scent them. And then it takes me all of two seconds to put the reason together, and maybe it also explains my uneven emotions.
I stammer under the realisation. “Oh, shit.”
“Oh, shit?”
“Yeah,” I say, gulping loudly too.
I didn’t put it together before. Valak scents like soul warming bergamot, like a cup of earl grey tea while Gabriel is like warm honey straight from the hive. To me they are similar, but they’re poles apart too. They are both as different in scent as Lincoln and Noah are in looks.
Generally, people don’t suddenly lose the ability to smell unless they’re sick or they’ve had an accident. Except for me. I lose my ability to smell for a couple of hours before I start going into heat.
“Oh shit. Oh shit…” I say again, looking at each of them. “Oh shit.” My freak out starting to get a little more serious for obvious reasons. Like, hello, one cock starved omega in heat, trapped in a house with four alphas.
“Would you stop with the oh shit. What’s wrong?” Noah asks confusedly, while being the voice of reason, because the others are looking wide eyed much like I would be.
“Oh shit, I’m going to go into heat,” I whisper.
18
LENNON
Watching the faces of four grown men pale is not a boost for your confidence. Just saying. And the bullshit from yesterday speaks louder than the promises of today, ensuring I read their silence wrong, even after we just spent the last few days talking about a future.
“I have it sorted. I’m sorry it’s going to happen with us locked together, all I need is a room. Once everything is finished, within about eighteen hours, I think it might be better for me to go back to the mainland and get on with my life, leave you to yours.”
Rejection licks at my heels, making me slightly neurotic. And my hormones make me overly dramatic. If I was alone, I’d be crying into Ares’ fur, watching romcoms and eating a gallon of Neapolitan ice cream.
Then, Gabe crashes into me. “Len, say again. I’m sure you said you’re going into heat. But my little brain just sucked all the blood out of my big brain, and I got a little caught up in the pure fucking heavenly stuff in my mind about all the ways your body and mine could get locked together. And clearly I fucked up, because my little troublemaker looks like she’s about to leg it. Now, before you do that, and before I make a fool out of myself, remember our deal, and say again what you just said, for the guy with the raging boner right now.” Gabe speaks slowly, but his eyes are filled with a dozen different emotions. “And, Len, that’s me okay? Don’t worry about anyone else in the room but you and me.”
He’s sweet, a little inappropriate, and a whole lot forthright. But I’m coming to learn that is simply Gabe being Gabe. I’m also finding out he has this ability to sooth my emotions while being someone I feel safe sharing secrets with. Secrets I never thought I’d share with anyone, but here we are.
“I lose my ability to smell before I go into heat. I don’t know why, but it’s a sign. I’m early though; it might be because I’m stressed.”
“Or you feel safe, dove.” Lincoln steps into my periphery before he takes a position at my back, wrapping his arms around my tummy and holding me to his chest. “Sorry, I was dazzled is all. Just a man caught admiring a beautiful woman’s strength and independence, trying to figure out how he got her to agree to consider a future with him too. You’re constantly surprising me. I feel like the luckiest person alive to be one of the people that was tasked with caring for you.”
“Everything is happening at warp speed; I don’t know what’s real or not,” I admit.
“It’s real,” Valak says, tapping his hand on the countertop, pulling my attention over to him. “Sorry. My head immediately jumped into what I have to do to make sure you are safe and protected during your heat. I’ll do better.”
“And similarly, I got hung up on wondering if I could be enough?” Noah huddles close too. “But that’s always been an issue for me, hasn’t it, Lennon?”
My eyes flare wide at all these strange confessions.
“Your mind is ticking loudly, Lennon. Take it back to easy, manageable steps. We all heard right, that you’re going into heat and you’re displaying your first signs?” Noah asks, hovering.
I nod. One nod turns into two, three before Lincoln stops my little freak out by kissing the side of my head. Absorbing some of my stress, that’s what it feels like.
A tap on the bench, and I look straight over to Valak. “When?”
“Within eighteen hours, give or take,” I say, my voice starting to rise again after my imagined rejection.
“Then we have plenty of time to get you settled and feeling okay. Right?” he asks again, his eyes hard but not at me. More like he’s concentrating, running through a list in his head. I nod, and he winks back at me.
And he makes the pressure in my chest ease more.
Valak keeps going, trying to explain himself. “Our deal was for protection, the detail on how we do that was being discussed before we got interrupted earlier. It was to be interpreted how you wanted and you define what that means for us. Whereas heat cycles…”
